Thankfully, Simon absolutely never begs.

Me- There's a little dog here. Staring at me. What does it want?

J- A great many things. And most of them are food.

Simon- Stare. Head sinks between paws. Stare continues, necessitating eyebrow involvement.

Today was the type that starts out slow and relaxed- and it should be, right, since it is after all GOD'S DAY. (cue choir)

Jonathan had to leave to play at church at 7:30 and I thought, hey, why not drag my butt out of bed just long enough to drag his super-heavy drum hardware bag up the stairs. Thus, the day began with points added to my side of the marriage score card! Plus, I read somewhere that revving up your metabolism at the very beginning and end of the day can make a difference in the size of the butt anyway. Probably hooey, but the score card- that's important.

Today in church I realized I don't really like worship. Wait, wait! What I mean is, it's harder to do it as part of the congregation. Like Annie Dillard says, "I know only enough of God to want to worship him, by any means ready to hand." But when the band was playing today, and I was in the back of the VERY crowded room, I had such a hard time thinking about what I was doing. I kept looking at the people around me, judging the songs, noticing the way the band was playing, pretty much failing in any weak attempt to think about Godstuff.

It used to bug me that when I'm playing in the band, sometimes I get distracted by the mechanics of playing / leading. Now it dawns on me that I'm even less good at it in the roll of worshipper / reciever. Luckily, we're not supposed to be led by how things feel. (Hello, Mormonism.) We're just supposed to do it. And when it's good it's incredible, that realization that you can have a direct connection.

Of course, driving home yesterday Dancing Queen came on in the car, and I felt the power of the spirit, amen!

Hello to Carole

You are my favorite sister in our whole family, you know. You're happily sleeping just now, and your surgeon is at work, and I'm sure it's all going swimmingly.

I'm worse than Mom, you know. I called her and she answered, "Hello" with just a little more prompt than question in her voice, know what I mean? I said "Sorry-I-just-hadn't-heard-anything-yet..." and she said, "Yeah, we-haven't-either. We'll-call-you-when-we-do." Click. Tone. We could be the small-print readers on the car commercials.

Enny-hoo.

You're being thought of.

Joan of Arc in the Garden: J.B. LePage

Jules Bastien-LePage: Joan of Arc in the Garden, 1880.

This is my favorite painting. You can't tell by looking here, but it's huge- more than 6 feet square, and it hangs in the MET in NY. The first time I saw it my parents were visiting me- same trip we took a great pic of us all on the World Trade Center roof. It had an incredible view.

You also can't really see the details all squished online- there are three "voices", the saints of Donremy in the trees behind and above her. In real life, they are gilt and shimmer- at first it looks like it might just be the sky or light through the trees, and even when you know they're there you can only look at them for a bit because of her.

May 1 2005 

here we are before marriage. little did we know... 

And really, why not?

I have a new student, a retired man who looks like he must have run some yuppy enterprise. He wears pseudo-camping preppy wear at all times- you know, those suede-looking shoes with no laces, very Seattle. But here's the thing, he lives in a small town north of Madison and plays the violin.

That's what he wants from life now, as a fit and wealthy man in his 60's. So he bought himself a violin. $90,000 of violin. And 3 nice bows.

Man cannot play a scale and end on the same pitch he starts with, but he's got this instrument...

My friend said he's the definition of irony worked out in the musical world. If you're a musician you don't make the money to get a great instrument without mortgaging something, and if you've put your life into making money you don't have time to be a great musician.

Well, at least I'll get to use it sometimes to demonstrate while teaching him. Gonna need that drool-guard.

Deitrich von Bonhoeffer

Just as it is the crown

and not merely the will to rule

that makes the king,

so it is marriage

and not merely your love for each other

that joins you together

in the sight of God and man.

As high as God is above man,

so high are the sanctity, the rights,

and the promise of love.

It is not your love that sustains marriage,

but from now on

the marriage that sustains your love.

Hey- you found us!

J's at work and I'm home thinking about all our relatives far away on the west-er side of the continent. I realized that Mom has no blog to visit and that's just wrong. So we better make one right here.

Today's for practicing on the new viola I'm trying out and getting ready for the audition in 3 weeks. Getting ready for an audition is an interesting process. You have to go very slowly and take care with every detail while not at any time freaking out. My big temptation lately has been testing myself by just giving an excerpt a play-through at performance tempo instead of keeping my wits and patience at hand. If you have met me, then you may snicker at the concept of 'me' and 'patience'.

Last night J worked all evening pretty much and I practiced, except when I went in the basement to play with my new toy. I got me a bike trainer. The back tire of my very own bike turns a little wheely thing on a frame and there it is- me pedaling away while reading magazines and watching reruns. Why is it it seems stranger to go nowhere on my bike than on a treadmill? Anyway, someday there might be no little pooch around my knees... hmmm muscled knees. Nothin' better.

More forthcoming. That new viola needs some playing, and I get tense if I don't get to practicing before noon.